Use this Editor to record a purchase. Purchases are quite complicated in this application so the editor is rather more complicated than most. In practice, it's quite straightforward to use. Remember that you can only purchase a ‘product’ (which is the definition of a product in the application) so all purchase items must refer to a product.

Remember that the Garden Notebook application is not a book-keeping application. You are free to record as much or as little detail as you wish, or none at all. Purchases of seeds and plants are particularly useful as the root of a history tree.

1. ## Date

   This is the date of the purchase. Required, initially set to ‘today’.

2. ## Delivery date

   This is an optional field to record the delivery date of, say, mail order items.

3. ## Retailer

   The retailer where you made the purchase. Required. If the retailer has an ‘own brand’ set up, that brand will be the default for new purchase items and will be automatically inserted on items dragged and dropped if they do not have a specific brand.

4. ## Price

   The total cost of the purchase. This is entirely optional; no attempt is made to reconcile this value with the individual purchase items.

5. ## Order No.

   The order number. This is optional but can be a useful way to keep track of online orders.

6. ## Invoice No.

   The invoice number. This is optional but can be a useful way to keep track of online orders.

7. ## Comments

   These are comments on the entire purchase. For instance, you can record that there was a loyalty card discount on the purchase.

8. ## Items

   These are the individual purchase items. The easiest way to add entries is to drag and drop from the Products list or the Shopping list.

   1. ## Type column

      This is the product category for a specific product you want to add. You can make an entry here by clicking and selecting from the drop down list.

   2. ## Name column

      Choose the name of an existing product of the chosen type, or type in a new value. Note that this can create a lot of ‘phantom’ products (just category and name without the detail). If the product type is ‘plant like’ the drop down will be a list of plant species. This value is required.

   3. ## Detail column

      Choose the ‘detail’ of an existing product of the chosen type and name, or type in a new value. If the product type is ‘plant like’ the drop down will be a list of plant varieties. This value is optional.

   4. ## Brand column

      Choose the brand of an existing product of the chosen type, or type in a new value. This is optional.

   5. ## Quantity

      The quantity of the item bought. This is usually 1 but you can record multiple items, e.g. bags of compost. This is optional.

   6. ## Unit

      The unit of the purchase. Typically this is ‘each’ or ‘packet’ or similar. The value is optional and I rarely bother.

   7. ## Unit price

      The price per unit bought. This value is optional and no attempt is made to reconcile these values with the total cost of the purchase.

   8. ## Comment

      These are comments on the individual purchase item, for instance the discount for a ‘multi-buy’.

   9. ## Drag and Drop

      The easiest way to add purchase items is to drag and drop an entry from the Products list or the Shopping list. You can modify the actual values as required - this might create a new product or find a matching, existing product but no existing product entry will be changed.

   10. ## Context menu

       You can use the sub-menus to build a history tree rooted on a purchase item.

       1. ## Delete

          Delete the current purchase item. You will be asked to confirm the deletion then the item will be permanently deleted; there is no ‘undo’ option. Any products created will not be deleted. If the purchase item is part of a history tree you cannot delete it.

       2. ## History

          1. ## Later history

             If available, this will bring up a new tab showing the history tree rooted on this purchase item.

          2. ## And then

             This opens a further sub-menu allowing you to enter a new diary entry as a daughter of this purchase item and so start a history tree rooted on this purchase item. For example, a seed purchase will often be the mother of many ‘sow’ Husbandry entries.

9. ## Products

   This tab holds a list of the currently known Products as a tree divided on the product type. The entries are not editable. The purpose of the list is to make it easy to drag and drop products onto the purchase items list.

   1. ## Context menu

      The only option is to add the selected product to the purchase items. No check is made for duplicates.

10. ## Shopping list

    This tab shows the shopping list. Product entries cannot be changed. The purpose of the list is to make it easy to drag and drop products onto the purchase items list; only product entries can be dragged and dropped, not ‘free-hand’ entries.

    1. ## Context menu

       1. ## Do not delete

          The normal action for an entry copied to a purchase item is that the shopping list item will be deleted when the purchase is saved (i.e. the shopping list is finished with). Sometimes you might want to keep an item on the list even when you've purchased it - for instance, I know I'm always going to need more compost. You can use this menu entry to avoid deleting the shopping list entry on saving the purchase. This behaviour only applies to this specific purchase.

       2. ## Mark for deletion

          This option is to reverse the ‘do not delete’ option above and restore normal behaviour.

       3. ## Copy to purchase

          Copy this entry to the purchase item list.

11. ## Cancel button

    If you click this button the editor will exit without saving the new or changed entry. Note that if you added new products, those values will already be on the database.

12. ## Save button

    Use this to save the new or changed entry to the database.

13. ## Delete button

    Use this button to delete the current entry. You will be asked to confirm the deletion. Once you delete an entry, it's gone forever, there is no ‘undo’ option. You are not allowed to delete an entry which already has descendants in the History tree.